THE ONLY WAY

WHY shouldn't one be able to lead a spiritual life
in the world? But it is extremely difficult.
Once I passed over the bridge at Baghbazar. How
many chains it is tied with! Nothing will happen if
one chain is broken, for there are so many others
to keep it in place. Just so there are many ties on a
worldly man. There is no way for him to get rid of
them except through the grace of God.

THE INEVITABLES

EVFRYONE must reap the result of his past
Karma. One must admit the influence of
tendencies inherited from the past births and the
result of the Prarabdha karma. And one must
remember that pleasure and pain are the
characteristics of the embodied state. In Kavi
Kankan's Chandi it is written that Kaluvir was sent
to prison and a heavy stone placed on his chest.
Yet Kalu was born as the result of a boon from the
Divine Mother of the Universe. Thus pleasure and
pain are inevitable when one accepts a body.
Again, take the case of Srimanta, who was a great
devotee. Though his mother, Khullana, was very
much devoted to the Divine Mother, there was no
end to his troubles. He was almost beheaded.
There is also the instance of the wood-cutter who
was a great lover of the Divine Mother. She
appeared before him and showed him much grace
and love; but he had to continue his profession of
wood-culling, and earn his livelihood by that
arduous work. Again, while Devaki, Krishna's
Mother, was in the prison she had a vision of God
Himself endowed with four hands, holding mace,

discus, conch-shell and lotus. But with all that she
could not get out of the prison.

NOTHING IS LOST IN THE ECONOMY OF GOD

THERE is a story about a man who practised
Sava-sadhana17. He worshipped the Divine
Mother in a
deep forest. First he "saw many terrible visions.
Finally a tiger attacked and killed him. Another
man, happening to pass by and seeing the
approach of the tiger, had climbed a tree.
Afterwards he got down and found all the
arrangements for worship at hand. He performed
some purifying ceremonies and seated himself on
the corpse. No sooner had he done a little Japa
than the Divine Mother appeared before him and
said: “My child, I am very much pleased with you.
Accept a boon from Me”. He bowed low at the
Lotus Feet of the Goddess and said: "May I ask
you one question, Mother? I am speechless with
amazement at your action. The other man worked
so hard to get the ingredients for Your worship

and tried to propitiate You for such a long time,
but You did not condescend to show him Your
favour. And I, who don't know anything of
worship, who have done nothing, who have
neither devotion nor knowledge nor love, and who
haven't practised any austerities, am receiving so
much of Your grace?" The Divine Mother said
with a smile, "My child you don't remember your
previous births. For many births you tried to
propitiate Me through austerities.
As a result of those austerities all these things have
come to hand, and you have been blessed with My
vision. Now ask me your boon."
One must admit the existence of tendencies
inherited from previous births.

A HINDU WHO WAS FORCED TO EMBRACE ISLAM

Once, there lived a very pious Hindu who
always worshipped the Divine Mother and chanted
Her name.
When the Mussalmans conquered the country, they
forced him to embrace Islam. They said to him:
"You are now a Miissalman. Say 'Allah'. From now
on you must repeat only the name of 'Allah'." With
great difficulty he repeated the word 'Allah', but
every now and then blurted out 'Jagadamba'. At
that the Mussalmans were about to beat hi in.
Thereupon he said to them: 'I beseech you! Please
do not kill me. I have been trying my utmost to
repeat the name of Allah, but our Jagadamba has
filled me up to the throat. She pushes out your
Allah".
It is not an easy thing to destroy old tendencies

POWERFUL ARE THE INBORN TENDENCIES

Let me tell you how powerful inborn tendencies
are. A prince had, in a previous birth, been the son
of a washer-man. While playing with his chums in
his incarnation as the prince, he said to them:
"Stop those games, I shall show you a new one. I
shall lie on my belly, and you will beat the clothes
on my back as the washer-man does, making
swishing sound."

HOW VANITY TURNS A PERSON'S HEAD!

THOSH who have read a few books cannot get rid
of conceit. Once I had a talk with Kalikrishna
Tagore about God. At once he said, "I know all
about that." I said to him: "Does a man who had
visited Delhi brag about that? Does a gentleman go
about telling everyone that he is a gentleman?"
Oh, how vanity turns a person's head! There was a
scavenger woman in the temple garden at
Dakshineswar.
And her pride! And all for a few ornaments! One
day a few men were passing her on the path and
she shouted to them, "Hey! Get out of the way,
you people!" If a scavenger woman could talk that
way, what can one say about the vanity of others?

WHEN SIVA'S BULL BARED ITS TEETH

GOD alone is the Doer, and we are all His
instruments. Therefore it is impossible even for a
Jnani to be egotistic. The writer of a hymn to Siva
felt proud of his achievement; but his pride was
dashed to pieces when Siva's bull bared his teeth.
He saw that each tooth was a word of the hymn.
Do you understand the meaning of this? These
words had existed from the beginningless past. The
writer had only discovered them.